Bithynia and Pontus

Bithynia and Pontus was the name of a province of the Roman Empire on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia . It was formed during the late Roman Republic by the amalgamation of the former kingdoms of Bithynia and Pontus . The amalgamation was part of a wider conquest of Anatolia and its reduction to Roman provinces.

In 74 BC Bithynia was willed to Rome by Nicomedes IV of Bithynia in the hope that Rome would defend it against its old enemy, Pontus. Due to the influence of a guest-friend of Nicomedes, Julius Caesar, then a young man, and an impassioned speech by the deceased king's sister, Nysa before the Senate, the gift was accepted. Rome was divided into two parties, the populares, party of the "people," and the optimates, party of the "best." The guest-friendship had been offered to Caesar, a popular, to save his life by keeping him from Rome during a proscription by Sulla, an optimate in power. Forever after Caesar had to endure scurrilous optimate slander about his relationship to Nicomedes, but Bithynia became a favored project of the populares.

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